


Leavin' Me Behind

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e16 Shadow, Gen, Implied Relationships, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam said Dean was going to have to let him go his own way...but did he really mean it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leavin' Me Behind

**Author's Note:**

> s1e16 Shadows  
> I don't own anything, just borrowing for a bit.

_SAM: I know. I’m just sayin’, what if we did? What if this whole thing was over tonight? Man, I’d sleep for a month. Go back to school—be a person again._

_DEAN: You wanna go back to school?_

_SAM: Yeah, once we’re done huntin’ the thing._

_DEAN: Huh._

_SAM: Why, is there somethin’ wrong with that?_

_DEAN: No. No, it’s, uh, great. Good for you._

_SAM: I mean, what are you gonna do when it’s all over?_

_DEAN: It’s never gonna be over. There’s gonna be others. There’s always gonna be somethin’ to hunt._

_SAM: But there’s got to be somethin’ that you want for yourself—_

_DEAN: Yeah, I don’t want you to leave the second this thing’s over, Sam._

_SAM: Dude, what’s your problem?_

_DEAN: Why do you think I drag you everywhere? Huh? I mean, why do you think I came and got you at Stanford in the first place?_

_SAM: ‘Cause Dad was in trouble. ‘Cause you wanted to find the thing that killed Mom._

_DEAN: Yes, that, but it’s more than that, man.  You and me…and Dad—I mean, I want us….I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again._

 

Sam’s gut twisted at the look in his brother’s eyes. Dean—always the stoic one, always the one with the tough skin and the armored heart—looking at him like his soul had been flayed alive by Sam’s simple admission and left to bleed to death on the floor between them.

“Dean, we are a family. I’d do anything for you.” For a fraction of a second, Sam saw hope spark deep in the dark of Dean’s eyes, and the only thing he could do was pour more salt on the wound. “But things will never be the way they were before.”

The spark stuttered, guttered, held on tight. “Could be,” Dean breathed.

Sam felt like throwing up. Until this moment he really hadn’t understood anything about his brother. Sure, Dean had always been the one to take care of him: patch him up when things went south, talk him down when Dad went a little too far, fret and worry over how he was doing at school and if he was making friends and getting good grades or not, no matter how little it meant to the life they lived. But, until now—this second—in this dingy, dim motel room over an arsenal of weaponry to go to war with who-knew-what in the dark tonight; Sam had not been able to hear the love in his brother’s long silent looks. 

He floundered, felt himself sinking, being pulled in by that beseeching look in those moss green eyes, and instinct made his tongue work, grasping onto the dream he’d tried to build and maintain for himself, no matter how his heart protested the words that spilled out.

“I don’t want them to be,” he said. “I’m not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you’re gonna have to let me go my own way.”

And it died.

Sam watched the spark go out and Dean’s eyes turn dark. He could almost hear the rattle of armor plate as he redressed his heart in battle gear, cinching up the soft places at the joints so that no more barbs from his beloved little brother could work their way through his guard. Nonetheless, he held Sam’s gaze for a long minute, breath coming in and going out in juttering puffs like his heart was racing in his chest, struggling for one last chance to break through, to hold on for the moment Sam reconsidered.

Sam disconnected first, dropping his gaze and his hands to the duffle in front of him, picking out a silver knife and—for the briefest second—considered running it across his arm just to let the blood flow, to feel the pain, to put him on some kind of level playing field with the the torment he was putting Dean through. But it wouldn’t do any good—just send his brother into a panic. He kept his gaze down, pushed the tip of his finger against the needle sharp tip of the blade. Blood welled up, dripped down on the the bag, soaked in and disappeared in the dark green many years stained canvas.

He heard the twist and thud of Dean’s heavy boots on the floor across from him. If he noticed the blood, he made no move to stop it, no move to bandage or chastise his little brother for his carelessness. His footfalls moved away toward the bathroom door and it closed, softly. 

Sam would have preferred a slam. He would have preferred outright rage, or some caustic accusing  remark. Anything but this defeated silence.

He pulled his finger away, stuck it briefly in his mouth, nearly gagging on the rusty taste of his own blood, and wiped the blade tip on the thigh of his jeans. He dropped it back into the bag and slumped on the edge of the bed with a leaden sigh of frustration. 

All his life it had been this: a constant tug-of-war between Dean and the rest of the world—the rest of life. He’d grown up in the circle of his brother’s protection and the cage of their father’s dictates, feeling detached from everything and everyone around him. He even lacked any kind of real connection to their father because the man that Dean clung to and to whom he swore unwavering fealty was long a memory by the time Sam was old enough to remember anything. He could only remember the half crazed, obsessed man who dragged them across the country at all hours of the day or night, forcing them to learn about things that other kids their age believed only lived in fairy tales and were terrified of at any rate. Dean had gone to great lengths to shield Sam from it, to salvage some form of his childhood for him, but all that had really done was leave a bigger hole because Sam had no reference for his father’s odd and outrageous actions except for Dean’s constant assurance that Dad was an unsung hero and would never, ever let anything bad happen to them. 

Sam had never trusted that it was their father who would keep them safe, but he had trusted Dean. Dean was always there—from scraped knees to banshees—he was the one who got between Sam and anything that even looked at him the wrong way. Even, on occasion, their father.

But for as long as he could remember, he had wanted to escape. The few times they had settled anywhere—never more than a year—and Sam had gotten a taste of something near a normal life, he had wanted it; wanted it with every fiber of his being. Dean had even fostered it, trying his best to keep Sam on an even keel, get him signed up for sports and extracurricular activities, bullying teachers and counselors into testing him out of grades because he was so smart. He’d done everything to try and make that normal life a possibility for Sam, and then Sam had found his opportunity and taken it. 

Leaving for Stanford was one of the keenest memories he had…and the most painful. The look in Dean’s eyes that night as he stood behind Dad’s shoulder, while he and Sam raged at each other in the close quarters of the pokey little hallway of the run down house they were renting, was an agonizing mix of hope and betrayal. Hot tears had stung Sam’s cheeks, and Dad had cursed him and called him weak for them, never understanding that those tears had nothing—nothing—to do with John and leaving the hunt behind; and everything to do with leaving Dean.

Sam pressed the heels of his hands deep into his eyes sockets, like he could gouge out the memories. He loved Dean, make no mistake. He had believed somehow that Dean might come with him. What he would have done after that, Sam had no idea. College wasn’t on Dean’s to do list—not the academic aspect anyway—and he wasn’t one who could be stagnate in one place. Dean had just as much of an itch to move, to hunt, as their father did. Only his love for Sam had tamed it enough to keep him still and at home with his little brother when their father was out chasing down evil. 

That love wouldn’t have been strong enough to anchor Dean to Sam forever though, and he had proved it when John had told Sam in a deadly whisper to get out and never come back. Dean had gulped a huge breath, out of John’s line of sight, one tear falling down from the center of his eye before he hung his head and turned away, walking out the back door and into the night, disappearing so that Sam couldn’t even find him to say good-bye when he had finally slammed out of the house with John still yelling after him.

The bathroom door creaked open and Dean’s footfalls came back across the room to the bed, pausing in front of Sam, who slouched on the edge of the mattress, head hung so his hair fell across his eyes to hide the threatening tears, hands limp in his lap.

“Fuck…” Dean whispered and dropped down in front of Sam. He picked up the hand with the pricked finger and lifted it to examine the tiny cut more closely. He swore again and rummaged deeper in one of the bags until he came out with one of their first aid kits. “Damn it, Sam, can’t you even handle a knife properly anymore?”

Normally, Sam would have taken offense to the insinuation that he was incompetent with any of their chosen weapons, but all he could do now was stare at the top of Dean’s head as he bent to the task of daubing ointment on Sam’s finger and stripping free a bandage from its wrappings to cover the cut. It was complete overkill, but Sam knew it was also completely Dean.

“Good thing it was solid silver. At least, it won’t get infected.” Dean held the sticky bandage between thumb and forefinger while he held up the injured digit and blew softly on it just like he had Sam’s skinned knees when he was seven. Sam gulped back another surge of tears.

“Dean…”

“Just sit still,” Dean responded automatically as he placed the bandage carefully and secured it around Sam’s fingertip. “There. Now be the hell more careful with the knives, okay, Sammy?”

Dean got back up, dusted off his knees and bent over the duffle bag, sorting and repacking and taking stock of everything Sam had brought in from the trunk. Sam just sat on the bed and nodded, even though Dean’s attention was elsewhere now, the task of patching one more of Sam’s injuries done and tended to. He swallowed thickly, choked on a sob that he was no longer sure was because of Dean’s endless capacity to forgive him, or because—if everything went like it was supposed to tonight—he was going to have to leave his brother behind. Again.


End file.
